Introduction

Describing New Mexico as weird is at once both vaguely insulting and self-evidently true.

It doesn’t necessarily mean the entire state is weird—though it is—but instead that a sort of latent, fundamental oddness exists across its 121,600 square miles. Being the fifth largest state, it offers plenty of room for the motley collection of artists, dreamers, scientists, pioneers, cranks, cultists, writers, outlaws, and others to make their marks. All states are strange in their own ways, but New Mexicans take a certain pride in their weirdness. As I beseech you to do throughout this book, consider the evidence:

•We make Christmas snowmen from tumbleweeds.

•We have a literal airport into outer space.

•Every Labor Day weekend, thousands of New Mexicans gather to burn a fifty-foot tall marionette to banish fears, worries, and other glooms.

•We have life-size statues of fictional murderous drug dealers in the Albuquerque Convention Center.

•We routinely have to explain to people that we are, in fact, one of the United States.

•While states have official flowers, birds, trees and such, New Mexico is the only state with an official question: “Red or green?”

Yeah, we’re a bit weird.

The challenge in writing this book—as with my previous collection of New Mexico mysteries, Mysterious New Mexico—was in selecting and sampling New Mexican weirdness. I freely confess that doing justice to the breadth and depth of this state’s fundamental and profound weirdness in a dozen chapters, or even a dozen books, is impossible. Instead I have tried to give a sampling—a bit of this, a bit of that—in that sense, not unlike the Mexican chile (the pepper in New Mexico, not the stew) and cheese-slathered combo plate available at a beloved Fourth Street eatery in Albuquerque.

We have some ghost stories from around the state, including Cimarron’s Haunted St. James Hotel and one in my hometown of Corrales, the Territorial House (where I worked for several years)—as well as a look at Old Town’s haunts. The truth behind some of these mysteries, whether the curious case of the sinister symbol made from old tires found on Albuquerque’s West Mesa or the Taos Hum, can be revealed with the benefit of context and retrospect. Weird places often have monsters, and New Mexico is no exception. I had lots to choose from, but I wanted to focus on two of the most curious cryptids reportedly seen in the state: Bigfoot and its vampiric cousin el chupacabra, said to suck the blood from goats, chickens, and cattle. Speaking of strange animal deaths, I also offer the Great Elk Murder Conspiracy.

We have strange inscriptions on rocks outside of Los Lunas, miraculously weeping statues in Hobbs, the strange interdimensional “skyfish” recorded outside of Roswell, and, not least, the underground UFO base said to be near the tiny town of Dulce.

One way this book serves the metaphorical whole enchilada, though, is in its deep dive into a variety of mysteries. If you just want a superficial AI-generated summary of what Wikipedia (and some random people on the internet) think about these mysteries—and, oh yes, nothing brings out the cranks like mysteries—then Weird New Mexico is probably not for you.

My interest is in exploring the mysteries, and, whenever possible, solving them. Everyone loves a good mystery—who doesn’t like to be intrigued and tantalized by the lure of the unknown? I certainly do. A story or legend may be fun and interesting, but is it also true? With this book I try to find out by separating, whenever possible, truth from myth. I take both seriously and investigate them thoroughly because I believe they deserve it. We can’t plausibly deem these strange events “unexplained” until we’ve done our best in trying to explain them.

While New Mexico is steeped in the strange and supernatural, science is also a big part of the state and its history, from the Manhattan Project to the Spaceport. It boasts not one but two world-class national laboratories (both of which play roles in mysteries herein). Science and scientific investigation can—and should—be applied to strange events and weird phenomena.

I’ve investigated mysterious phenomena in dozens of countries on five continents in search of answers. With Weird New Mexico, I return to my home state to tackle some of its weirdest phenomena, including haunted hotels, witchcraft, monsters, aliens—and, of course, legends of miracles and mayhem. I have never been content to repeat other people’s stories or to accept other people’s word for what happened too credulously. I give background information on the topics and, along the way, draw on folklore, sociology, history, and forensic science investigation to help guide the reader through truths and myths about each topic. In some cases, I have even tracked down people who were personally involved to get the story straight from the source. So join me as I reexamine some weird old mysteries—and unearth some new ones—in the Land of Enchantment.